After the End
by Kreuger2
Summary: Rose and the New Doctor have been left to begin a new life together but things aren't that easy...


I know there are loads of these stories out there but I felt the need to write this! This is my first Doctor Who story, I'm new to the show but have watched all four series in a couple of weeks, love it!

There will be a companion piece to this from the Doctors POV, coming soon...

I own nothing, sadly!

xxx

She stood on that beach, the scene of the two worst moments of her life and she had never felt more alone. The wind blew her hair in her face and she wiped at it angrily, she stared into the distance where the TARDIS was just minutes before. He stood at her side, the man so like the one she had been searching for all this time, he held her hand in his. She curled her fingers around his hand willing herself to feel something familiar and falling short. Could she really do this? Pretend to belong with this impostor when the man she really loved was out there somewhere?

She thought of him out there alone, and felt a pang of sorrow for him. For a brief moment he had felt what it was like to be a part of a family, only to lose it all and end up alone. Then she remembered how he had left her, with ease he had abandoned her, and she hated him. She was left to raise this sub-par version of himself when she could have been out there with him. If he had just let her.

The tears fell involuntarily and she brushed her hand over her face. Did he really feel so little for her that he could give her up so easily? All this time she had been sure, she thought back to the last time they stood on this beach. How convinced she had been that he was about to tell her those three little words that would have made giving him up easier. Maybe she had just allowed herself to believe it. She had wanted it so much, for him to be as much in love with her as she was with him, but it was clear now that wasn't the case.

She looked over to the other doctor, the new doctor, the one who had whispered to her everything she had wanted to hear. She wanted so much to believe that he was the same person, but there was a voice inside her that kept rising up to remind her that the man she had grown to love was out there. In another universe, the one that should have been hers, without her. He looked back at her uncertainly, he had no place in this world without her, but he knew he wasn't the one she wanted. She looked back to the spot where the TARDIS had once been not knowing what action to take next.

Her mother stepped up beside her and placed her hand tenderly on her shoulder, "Sweetheart come on, lets go home."

She looked to her mother desperate for her to read all the turmoil tearing at her heart and fix it. How could she go home with this man and live a normal life? "He's gone mum. He's gone and I'm never going to see him again." The tears began to fall freely now and her mother took her in an embrace. The new Doctor watching them unable to disguise the hurt in his eyes. He knew she couldn't look at him as she had the first Doctor, the real Doctor. He had the memories of their time together but they weren't really his memories and she felt that more than even he did.

"I thought I meant something to him mum."

"Oh honey you did, anybody with eyes could see that."

"Then how could he just leave me here? We could have been together, I would have stayed with him forever."

Behind them the Doctor watched compassionately, he knew with the certainty that came from sharing a persons thoughts that leaving her behind had not been easy for him. In fact it had been the hardest thing he had ever had to do, but how could he make her believe that without risking pushing her away. Instead he said nothing.

"He did what he thought was right. Isn't that what he always did in the end?" Jackie Tyler was almost leading with her daughter to hear her.

"How can this be right Mum? How can I go on living my life knowing that he is out there somewhere?"

"You can do what he wants you to do, take this man," Here she looked to the other Doctor, "and live the life with him that he wants for you." She gestures for him to take a step closer.

"Rose I'm not going to ask you to do anything that doesn't feel right for you, but I love you. This world is new to me, this life is new to me, and at this moment the only thing I know with any certainty is that love you." For a second he just looked at her searching for some encouragement.

"I'm sorry." She said finally, offering a small smile, "None of this is your fault, you don't deserve it."

"I understand. I want to be here for you, as a friend if that's what you want, as something else if you want that, I just want to be in your life, in whatever capacity you have room for me."

"You'd be ok with that? Leaving it up to me?" He nodded in response, "I need… to get to know you. You're not him, I can't look at you and see him, and right now that is really hard. But I want to get to know you separate from him. In time maybe…" She trailed off not sure how to continue, she couldn't promise him forever. She wasn't sure she would ever be able to see him for the man that he was, and not the man she wanted him to be. The man she had happily promised forever to, only to have him leave her here, without him.

He offered a shaky smile in her direction that despite his best intentions failed to mask the pain he felt. "That is all I want, I don't want to be a replacement, I just hope that someday you'll be able to see me for me." He lowered his eyes to the ground so that she couldn't see the pain hidden there and she took a step toward him.

She eyed him warily, he was so like him, the real Doctor and yet he wasn't. But he had that same vulnerability, the same pleading eyes, and if she closed her eyes hard enough she could almost believe he was the man she wanted him to be. She raised her hand to cup his face and offered him a shaky smile. "Let's go home." She turned to face her mother, "When will Dad be here?"

"Not til morning, we're going to need a hotel."

"Let's go, it's been a long day for us all." She took his hand and led the way, her mother trailing behind the both of them. She wasn't entirely sure about this new doctor either but after watching her daughter try so hard to reach the man she loved so much, she wanted to believe there could be a happy ending in this.

Rose led the three of them off the beach and toward the nearest hotel, all the time holding on to his hand. She was still hurting too much to know what her head and heart were feeling. She was still angry toward the man who left her behind, she knew he was trying to do his best by her but she resented the fact that he had never given her a choice. He had left her to fend for a man that wasn't him, but was so like him it hurt to look at him, a man who needed her more than she thought she could give him. At this point the only thing she knew for certain was that she couldn't bring herself to desert this man who needed her so much, and for now that would have to do.


End file.
